


Surrender and Win

by Leni



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Post-Series, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 16:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2474492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Slayer's tale, and how it's taken decades later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender and Win

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigriswolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/gifts).



> Written for TigrisWolf at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/565512.html?thread=79477768#t79516936). Prompt: **let me praise men for eating the apple**.

**1883\. Saint Petersburg**

Alexander knows this is wrong.

Not because this is his father's house, and he must behave honorably under his roof. Not because he is studying to follow in his father's steps, to one day take his rightful place in the Council, and if any indiscretion could cost him his future, this... this would make everyone he knows revile him.

And they'd have the right of it.

"Don't say it," Yelena tells him, sliding her hands across his lips, sealing the protest inside and unsaid. Her body is still cold from the harsh wind outside, and when she sheds her clothes, he pretends not to see the clawed tears and the trails of blood.

Her blood.

She is the Slayer, and this is _wrong_.

"Don't," she says again, slipping her arms around his neck when he half-rises, laying down next to him and using his own movement to bring him over her. He is still clothed where she is not, but the oddity doesn't seem to register with her. Why should it, when she doesn't know how this is done? _This is wrong_ , he thinks again, but she rubs the tip of her nose against his chin, and the familiar gesture reminds him that it's all his fault.

He never should have let her see her Watcher's son as a friend.

Never ever should have let himself warm up to the little lonely girl.

"Hush, Shura," she says again, her lips curling into a fond smile even as her hands start exploring the form of his chest. "Just let me..."

Let her kiss him again. Let her learn how to sweep her tongue across his teeth and draw a moan out of him. These are things she has learned already, in dark rooms while his father is locked away in his study. These are things he's blamed himself for, these last weeks, for letting himself look at his father's ward.

"Yelena," he calls her full name, praying it will call her sanity back as well. "We cannot..."

Her grip tightens on his shoulder, and it's a warning as much as a plea.

"Yes, we _can_ ," and it wouldn't be much of an argument if her legs weren't threading around his, pulling him closer, pulling him tighter against her.

"You must be tired," he tries again, and that's not another attempt to dissuade her but actual worry.

Alexander has heard his father go on about a new nest of demons in town. He's even helped track them during the daylight hours, going by the site of the body dumps - what little they've left from their meals - and the marks they've left behind. He knew his father would take Yelena tonight, just as he knew his offer to help the girl would have been met with a disbelieving glare.

Enough that one man is needed to bear witness, his father would have said, as he'd said many times when Alexander was younger and just starting to understand the role of the little girl that had been brought to their home but wasn't allowed to be part of it.

He's been worried about her for years.

He's wanted to do more than be a witness of her work - of her death - for just as long.

He has no idea when he just wanted _her_.

"Lena," he says, raising a hand to her cheek. "You must rest."

Yelena laughs. "I'll rest soon enough," she promises, her voice darkening. She lowers herself until her face is hidden beneath his chin, and she caresses the soft skin underside with her lips. "I'm not tired, Shura. I'm _alive_." Her fingers play with the hem of his nightshirt, slip inside to study the feel of undiscovered skin. "Tonight," she continues, so low that he's not sure she means for him to hear her, "I'm here tonight. I don't know about tomorrow."

She is sixteen. She shouldn't talk like that.

She is sixteen, and the last Slayer died five months ago, little more than a year older than Yelena.

His hands move to cradle her face, to lift her up until he can look her in the eye. There's a fresh scratch along her temple, and if he dared look at the rest at her, he knows he'd find more wounds and scars. She's supposed to be resting after the hunt and the trek back from the other side of the city. He's listened to their return, not a half hour earlier. His father has gone straight to bed, with not a word of praise or advice for her, and Yelena had pretended to follow his example and gone up to her rooms... just to slip into his instead.

"We shouldn't," he tells her. 

"We should," she insists, her hands pressing and digging and searching his skin. "Don't you see?" Her laugh hides a wild sob within its edges, and Alexander wants to kiss that pain away. "We may never - I may never -" Yelena shakes her head, meets his eyes with her darker ones. She is a girl, the child he's watched grow up with every summer. She was never just a girl. "We _must_."

The words trail across his cheek, follow their path to his lips, and she's kissing him again.

He gives in thinking to steal this one minute, this one kiss, this one slide down to nuzzle her neck and that's where he will stop - he _will_ \- but he tastes blood against her skin, her blood, and...

And he can't let her go now, can he?

He will never let her go.

*

**2003\. Paris.**

Buffy knew her eyebrows had lifted in surprise, but the sight before her truly deserved the sentiment. "Are you actually reading a Watcher's Diary?" she asked Faith, coming closer to make sure the younger woman hadn't slipped a racier book behind the old covers. She hadn't. "Willingly?"

Faith shrugged and lowered the book. "Sorta. Guy never made it officially as the Slayer's Watcher, but since he up and left with her, he was the only one around to tell her tale."

"He..."

"Yup." Faith nodded, grinning. "Gave the Council the big middle finger and ran all the way from Old Mother Russia to the land _de la fraternité_ \- and boy, did those two fraternize!"

"That's... romantic, I guess." But Buffy was frowning a little. "And kinda creepy."

"Relax, B. He was actually her Watcher's kid. Twenty-three to her sixteen." Faith grinned mischievously. "Compared to _some_ Slayer-lovin' dudes I know, this guy wasn't even toddling around."

Buffy made a face at her. "So," -she waved at the book, trying to stay on the subject- "one of us actually got her happily-ever-after."

Faith's expression sobered. "For a couple years, at least. He still watched her die - though he took out the vamp that did it... and the Watchers that brought it to town."

"Ah," Buffy said knowingly, giving a sad shake of her head. "The Council always had the best birthday gifts."

Faith closed the book, a strange reverence in the act, and looked Buffy in the eye. They were the oldest Slayers, the only ones alive who had dealt with the Watcher's Council in all its power. Some of the others may have grown up as Potentials, but they wouldn't have been objects of interest until they were actually Called. "Do you regret that the First destroyed them?"

Buffy opened her mouth in automatic defense of human life, but this was _Faith_ , who had learned the value of protecting those weaker than her. Just like the Council should have protected them. "I'm taking it as the chance to start anew."

Faith nodded. "We could use more guys like this Alexander guy."

"To run away with the girls?"

"No!" Faith laughed, then handed her the book in a clear request that Buffy should read it and see what she meant for herself. "To put himself on the chopping block for someone he cared about. I mean, the way he tells it, the girl was forbidden fruit, and he still took the plunge when she decided she wasn't forbidding him anything after all."

"A girl with a mind of her own," Buffy commented, no longer surprised Faith's curiosity about their story had outlasted her usual impatience around books. "I like her already."

Faith grinned. "Good to know we aren't the only ones, isn't it?"

 

The End  
18/10/14


End file.
